"Yip Yip!" Avatar - the Last Airbender

A brief summary of the plot, from wikipedia:

Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in a fantasy world on a planet that is home to humans, fantastic animals, and supernatural spirits. Human civilization is divided into four pre-industrialized nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Within each nation, there is an order of men and women called "Benders" who have an inborn ability to manipulate their native element. Bending is a powerful art form, combining martial arts and elemental mysticism. The bending arts are Waterbending, Earthbending, Firebending, and Airbending.

In each generation, one Bender is capable of bending all four elements; this is the Avatar, the Spirit of the Planet manifested in human form. When an Avatar dies, the Avatar Spirit reincarnates into an unborn baby native to the next nation in the Avatar Cycle.

The current Avatar is this chap:
[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/Avatar-book_1_Chapters_1_And_2_0003.jpg]
Twelve year old Aang, the titular character. I'm still a little behind on the series, but my wife, son, and I are huge fans, so I figured I'd start up a discussion. I'll add my own commentary later...

 

"The Fire prince (the one with the birthmark) is also a very interesting character."

That's not a birthmark. That's a scar, courtesy of dear old Dad, Fire Lord Ozai (sp?) voiced by none other than Mark Hamill. As an aside, if you ever wondered how Luke would've sounded as a Sith Lord, go no further than this voice characterization *shudders*

 

My two favorites so far are 1)The episode with the Earthbender king, and 2) "the Storm," where you find out a great deal of backstory on Aang and Prince Zuko

 

Just did a brief skimming of the Red Tornado character you're talking about, and with the exception that they both have some air powers in common, the relation seems pretty non-existant.

YRMV

 

Visible similarities aside, they don't have the exact same powers, they have some in common. So anyways, are you here to discuss the show in general, or are you here to go on about how you think Aang is a ripoff?

 

The Avatar is the only one able to master bending of all four elements. Also, each Avatar begins as a master bender of one of the elements, and what element they're born to follows a cycle. The previous Avatar, Roku, started as a Firebender, and air was the next element in the cycle. (AFAIK, the circumstances of Avatar Roku's death have not been explained) In an attempt to "break" the cycle, the Fire Nation launched a "first stike" against the Air Nomads in an attempt to either imprison the Avatar before he became fully-realized, or kill him while in "Avatar state."

In "Avatar state," all the spirits of the previous Avatars manifest. The Avatar is extremely powerful at this point, but it's been theorized that if the Avatar is killed in this state, the cycle will be broken, and no more Avatars will manifest.

Avatar Aang "began" as an Airbender, but the Fire Nation has (apparently) wiped out all other Airbenders, hence the title.

 

It's interesting watching this from the perspective of being an astrologer. Aang definately embodies many of the personality traits of air in astrology: extremely sociable, somewhat scattered, and his teacher is very much the Aquarius type. Uncle Iroh is also the quintessential Sagittarius.

I'll have to comment more about it later...

 

There are currently 5 DVDs out, with 4 episodes per disc. I don't know how many seasons that covers, since I've only caught them on DVD.

 

They actually have two sets of DVDs out for seaon one:

1) the aforementioned 5 discs of 4 episodes each
2) the complete boxed set, also included the heretofore unreleased pilot episode.

BTW, I'm getting caught up, and holy shiitake mushrooms! Katara is becoming a Betty Badanx bender! Did I see that right that she was designated a Master?

 

So far my favorites have been

1) the King of Omashu. King Bumi is a mad genius!
2) the Siege of the North Part I. We really got to see what Waterbenders are capable of.
3) the Storm. Great backstory on Aang & Zuko. Plus...Mark Hamill sounding very evil as Fire Lord Ozai.